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Archive for December 2012

Monday, December 31, 2012

The post holiday season always finds me in need of some thank you cards, so I took advantage of the color challenge of Midnight Muse, Pool Party, Basic Black and Whisper White at Friday Mashup and the sketch at Unscripted Sketches to make a simple card.

I can't believe that it's December 31st and that 2012 has come to a close in what seems like record fashion. I'm looking forward to the new year and whatever mysteries it has in store and I hope that you are too! For right now I'd like to send you heartfelt wishes for a fun and safe new year celebration, as well as a happy and healthy new year.

And I'd also like to thank everyone who takes the time to visit my little corner of the blogging world and leaves kind words and encouraging comments. I'm so thankful to be a part of this marvelous crafting world populated with generous, kind people who give me so much inspiration. I learn something new each and every day and I look forward to a fantastic, crafty 2013 with you!

Saturday, December 29, 2012

I interpreted The Play Date Cafe colors as More Mustard, Island Indigo, Sage Shadow and Wisteria Wonder. I used a polka dotted embossing folder, some Nouveau Chic DSP, added some newsprint washi tape, a bit of Wisteria Wonder ribbon accented with an Antique Brad, and my little calendar was done!

Thanks for stopping by!

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Friday, December 28, 2012

After a bit of a stamping vacation while I enjoyed Christmas (and I hope that you did too), I'm back with a project perfect for the new year to come. It's been ages since I've sat down in the craft cave and got my fingers inky but I figured that my card-making skills would become terribly rusty if I didn't go in there and try to make something. So that's where I went last night.

I chose the latest Mojo sketch and the color challenge at Nacho Average Challenge to make a desk calendar. Some time ago, my friend Deanna generously shared a calendar template with me and I've been kicking around ideas in my head about how best to use it. I remarked the other day that I had an epiphany about adapting sketch challenges to make gift tags so I applied that same logic to making my calendar which is how I found myself using the Mojo sketch.

I used some Soft Suede DSP from Comfort Cafe and stamped it with the leafy image from Summer Silhouettes, although it hardly shows behind my big scallop circle. The Old Olive DSP is from Cottage Wall and the beautiful butterfly is, of course, from Papillon Potpourri. (Now that Christmas is over I've got a hankering to use flowers and butterflies)!

I've got some plans to make some more calendars so stay tuned for more to come! And thanks so much for stopping by!

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Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Happy Christmas everyone! Thanks to the wonders of Blogger, today I am able to post a gift tag that I made using the latest colors at colourQ. I actually made the tag over a week ago, and wrote this post on Sunday so don't think I'm spending my Christmas holiday holed up in the craft cave! For my project today, I just couldn't resist one more gift tag before I call Christmas 2012 quits!

By the time you read this I will know if Santa has brought me some of the crafting goodies that I had on my Christmas list this year. I think I've been awfully good so I've got my fingers crossed that I get a chance to play around with some new stuff soon!

Hopefully once the holiday craziness slows down and life returns to normal you have some time to join us for our last challenge this year! Despite the busy season the colourQ design team has put together some great projects to inspire you. Go check them out! And thanks for stopping by!

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Sunday, December 23, 2012

The challenge this week at CAS-ual Fridays is DASHING THROUGH THE HOLIDAYS and they've teamed up with the 10 Minute Craft Dash for some fun. The idea behind the 10 Minute Craft Dash is to create a project in less than 10 minutes. I was intrigued and wanted to see if I could do it. For my first time around I kept things pretty simple and made a Christmas tag. And I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do before I started the stopwatch. But I'm pleased to say that I created this (using the retro sketch) in 5 minutes 47 seconds!

I found it quite chaotic trying to create in a hurry. I was literally running around my stamp room gathering supplies, cutting snowflakes and rounding corners in a bit of a frenzy. I'm shocked that I managed to do it so fast, and actually made something nice. I think I'll need a break before I try that again!

This tag measures 3 x 3 and features some Deck the Halls DSP, some gold striped washi tape, and some pretty layered snowflakes. The sentiment is from the quickly becoming indispensible Warm Words. I really like how it came out and it's already been attached to a gift for my brother-in-law who will surely not appreciate how adorable this is. Maybe I can sneak it back when he's not looking!

I've got one more tag to share before I put away my Christmas stamps for the year. But you'll have to wait until Christmas day to see it!

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Thursday, December 20, 2012

I've spent the last few days thinking about the black and gold challenge at Dynamic Duos when suddenly inspiration struck. Recently I had seen this card on Pinterest that I knew I wanted to CASE someday and from there it was a short leap to this gold and black card which also happens to fit the STARS challenge at CASology.

I punched a couple of small stars then one big one out of Basic Black cardstock then put a piece of Brushed Gold behind the bigger star, added a gold embossed sentiment and mounted the whole thing on a Basic Black card base with dimensionals and I was done! Actually a pretty easy card to put together but it looks pretty good, I think.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

I can hardly believe that Christmas is less than a week away. I think I'm just about ready and I hope that you are too! Being Wednesday, it is time for another great sketch from your friends at Freshly Made Sketches. This week Tui has designed a great sketch for you to try. And since we are winding down to a very busy time of year this will be our last sketch until January 2, 2013! Good news for all of you since you have until December 31st at 12:00 PST to link up your card in the gallery!

I didn't really need any more Christmas cards, but I wanted to keep with a seasonal theme so I grabbed the Snow Much Fun stamp set which has the cutest snowman images. And by the way, don't adjust your set, this is NOT Soft Suede. It's actually the retired True Thyme (paired with its companion DSP Holiday Thyme). As a lover of earthy colors, I can tell you that this is an all-time favorite and I only break it out for very special occasions!

I know it's a busy time of year but I hope that some time in the next couple of weeks you can ink up some stamps and join us in the gallery. We always love to see how you interpret our sketches! And don't forget to pop on by Freshly Made Sketches and check out what the design team has created.

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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

I've got another gift tag today that I made with the fab new colors at colourQ. I combined the colors with the latest challenge at Deconstructed Sketch which was (to me) a tag. I had a lot of fun making this and the sketch actually inspired me to think of gift tags a whole new way.

I used some of my never-ending stash of DSP including Deck the Halls, Ginger Blossom and Holiday Thyme on the way to making this tag. I think I'm swearing off buying new DSP for at least another ten years because no matter how hard I try, I never seem to use up what I've got. It's like it's secretly reproducing when I'm not looking!

I usually make my own tags for my gifts but I've always thought they were kind of boring and I don't usually post them here. But after I made this tag, following a sketch, I realized that this is the answer to my boring tag problem. So I went sifting through my huge compendium of sketches and decided that some of them could be adapted to a tag. And that's just what I've been doing ever since and I really like my tags now! I won't get to show all of them here, but there may be one or two that I show off.

So, as we wind down towards Christmas I'm sure that you'll find this week's colourQ challenge very inspiring. And speaking of inspiration, there's loads of it over at the colourQ blog where the always-amazing design team have got some great cards to share. Head on over and check them out!

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Monday, December 17, 2012

The ladies at Nacho Average Challenge have got a color challenge with some of my favorite colors to use at Christmas time. And since I'm still in tag-making mode I thought it would be fun to create a gift tag for one of my Christmas gifts using the colors. Lucky for me the cue card at CASology is GIFT so that fit right in with my plans and since it is the season of snowflakes I decided to add a few to fit in with the snowflake challenge at The Paper Players.

The picture is horrible, but in real life this gift tag is full of glitz and glam! The washi tape is striped with some shimmery silver and one of the snowflakes is cut with the Silver Glimmer paper. And even though it is nearly invisible in the picture, the tag is topped with some silver organdy ribbon and some silver cord. The sentiment is from my recently re-discovered Warm Words which, so far, has been pretty handy this holiday season.

Thanks for stopping by today. Tomorrow I've got another fun tag featuring the new colors from colourQ!

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Saturday, December 15, 2012

I took a little unplanned stamping vacation this week. I went into my stamp room every night this week after I got home from work, but I couldn't get inspired to actually create anything. I worked on some gift boxes a bit, but even those attempts were half-hearted. I think I just needed a little mental break from creating. I thought maybe Friday night I could get some things done, but then after the horrible events in Connecticut I really had no desire to try and be creative. I just wanted to disconnect myself from the outside world altogether. Today I thought I better get back into the swing of things before I forget everything I know.

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do, but I finally decided to combine the color challenge from Just Us Girls, with the sketch at retro sketches and the "even the score" challenge at CAS-ual Fridays.

It looks like I got a whole lot of inspiration from the JUGS graphic, but it was all subconscious, I think. When I'm checking out color challenges, I jot down the colors on my blotter and generally don't refer back to the challenge until I'm ready to post my card. So imagine my surprise when I added this little color swatch (just now) and found my poinsettia on it! I sure hope I don't get fired from the challenge for shamelessly ripping off their idea!

The pretty poinsettia is obviously a die (I like to fussy cut, but I'm not that good) and the scoring challenge at CAS-ual Fridays gave me a good excuse to use my diagonal scoring plate from SU. This was my first time using it and I was a little nervous that my stylus would jump out of the groove but I managed to get it all done with no problems.

Well thanks for staying with me while I rambled. And although I don't know anyone personally who was affected by the tragedy yesterday, I'm thinking a lot about each and every person who's lives have changed so dramatically. These are dark days indeed.

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Wednesday, December 12, 2012

I can hardly believe that Christmas is less than two weeks away! Are you ready? I got my Christmas cards in the mail the other day, the shopping is done, and I've been busy making tags and some gift boxes for my sister. It all sounds very organized, but I keep feeling that I've forgotten something and I'll be making a mad dash to do whatever it is in the days just before Christmas. I sure hope not!

Today, of course, is Freshly Made Sketches day and after a short break to make a card featuring flowers, I'm back today with some proper snowflakes. Linda Callahan is our hostess this week and she's created a sketch that shows off her signature style. It's a classic and a keeper!

After giving this a second look I really wish I had created a smaller layer in Crumb Cake popped up on dimensionals rather than relying on a frame drawn with my Crumb Cake marker. Live and learn, I say. But how about that cool washi tape? I think it's called math class notebook or something like that and it's got The Big Bang Theory written all over it! Literally! It has a graph paper grid that is a perfect match for Pool Party and written all over it are math equations the likes of which I haven't seen since my calculus days in college! It's totally awesome and I love that the color matches Pool Party because I made this with the color challenge at The Paper Players in mind.

Now, you must realize that today is 12-12-12 and that is some sort of sign that you should play along with us at Freshly Made Sketches. First pop on over there to be wowed and astonished by the great cards that the design team made, then join us by trying to use 12 stamps, 12 colors, 12 ribbons, 12 buttons and 12 of whatever else you can think of! Just kidding! But that would be quite a challenge wouldn't it!

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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

I was a little intimidated by the sketch this week at CAS(E) This Sketch, but I really wanted to challenge myself and see what I could come up with. Well inspiration struck Sunday night when I sat at my stamping table and contemplated the great colors from colourQ that Arielle has served up for your challenge pleasure! The two make beautiful music together, I think!

I know these colors are supposed to invoke images of snowmen and all other kinds of holiday cheeriness, but I needed a little break from Christmas so I hunted around in my stamp room looking for inspiration. When what to my wondering eyes should appear but a stamp set called Inspired By Nature that has these wonderful grass images.

Once I stamped the grass I turned to Summer Silhouettes and stamped some little flowers in Sage Shadow, a wispy stem in Always Artichoke and topped it off with some little Real Red flowers. I came this close to adding a sentiment to the bottom of the card but changed my mind at the last minute because I thought it would clutter up this clean and simple design. Good decision, I say to myself!

So head on over to colourQ and check out the cards from our amazing design team. There's an awful lot of inspiration to be seen over there so don't miss out!

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Sunday, December 9, 2012

This week's one layer challenge "in a row" at Less is More worked perfectly for me with the color challenge at Fab Friday.

I spent last night addressing all my Christmas cards and although I had just enough, I'm worried that I may have forgotten someone so I thought it might be a good idea to make a few extras "just in case." This card is one of those extras! I like this stamp of lights on a string because it reminds me of the big lights we always had on our tree when I was a kid. And those lights were always the most improbable colors which is why I thought this fun color challenge was perfect! This stamp is actually pretty small and I stamped it four times to achieve this look. I didn't do such a great job of matching up the tails of the light string, but I think it looks ok.

Today I hope to get my Christmas presents wrapped and the last of my decorations up, then it's smooth sailing until the big day! Thanks for stopping by!

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Saturday, December 8, 2012

Every once in a while I'll see a color challenge that makes me want to drop everything and participate. That's pretty much what happened to me when I saw the awesome colors at Color Throwdown this week. There was no way I was going to miss this challenge, unfortunately, I wasn't able to make a card until Friday night. I just got a few washi tapes lot of washi tape and I've been anxious to try them out on some Christmas cards when along comes this great FTL sketch which pretty much screamed "please use washi tape on me!"

This is a pretty simple card using the tree image from Perfect Presentation (one of those retired sets that I'll never part with) stamped in Gumball Green. I added a few wee snowflakes from the aptly named Snowflakes and once I stamped them I wish I hadn't. I was going to color some pearls to use as small accents but didn't have a red sharpie so I opted for this stamp instead. I think the pearls would have been prettier.

I am committed to finishing up wrapping my Christmas gifts and getting my Christmas cards ready for mailing this weekend, so I'm going to hole up in the house and get busy! Wish me luck! And thanks for stopping by!

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I'm just a girl who loves paper and ink. I've been stamping for many years since a friend invited me to her house to make my own Christmas cards. By day I'm a number cruncher at a bank so I love being able to finish the day with some paper, images and ink.

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The Fine Print

This is my personal blog and I am solely responsible for the content. I'm happy to share my creations with you for your own personal use and inspiration. You are free to CASE my work, but I would appreciate acknowledgement and a link back here if you do. Please do not represent anything you find here as your own, use my designs as contest submissions, or submit my designs to any publication. Thank you!